Imaginary Lover

For better or worse, the 1960s was a time when commercial and experimental cinema occasionally collided, producing innovative, financially successful films such as Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up (1966), but more often high profile failures such as Tony Richardson’s The Sailor from Gibraltar (1967), Otto Preminger’s Skidoo (1968) and the unfortunate 1969 screen adaptation of Lawrence Durrell’s Justine. In Search of Gregory (1969), which was designed as a star vehicle for Julie Christie by producer Joseph Janni and followed her critically acclaimed performance in Petulia (1968), falls into the latter category. 

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Lost in The Yabba

Gary Bond stars in the 1971 cult classic Wake in Fright aka Outback, directed by Ted Kotcheff

Gary Bond stars in the 1971 cult classic Wake in Fright aka Outback, directed by Ted Kotcheff

Retitled and released as Outback in the U.S. and Great Britain in 1971, Ted Kotcheff’s Wake in Fright was barely noticed by American critics and moviegoers and quickly vanished from screens. What attention it did receive in England at the time was mostly critical of the film’s negative depiction of the Australian Outback region and its inhabitants. And despite the fact that it was a huge critical success at Cannes and was nominated for the Golden Palm, the film went missing soon after and until recently was considered a lost film.      Continue reading